Asked whether it would be better for a secular
Jew who happened to be away from home on Rosh Hashana to pray with a Reform
congregation or by himself in a hotel, Chief Rabbi Amar said it would be
preferable to pray by himself.

“More than this, it's preferable not to pray at
all than to pray with them [a Reform congregation].

Tzohar: “It would be better if the chief rabbi would deal
with the actual issues, such as the alarming figures published by the Central
Bureau for Statistics which show that a third of secular couples prefer to get
married in civil ceremonies [abroad]; converts who are belittled and abused by
the institution which he heads; and in general the fact that a large part of
Israeli society want Judaism and tradition, but is disgusted by that same
Judaism when it comes to them through the offices of the Chief Rabbinate.”

The
marriage duration criterion clearly benefits Haredim. The figures speak for
themselves as, according to a report in Globes, 93 percent of ultra-Orthodox
aged 25-29 are married, compared with 47 percent of the overall Jewish
population.

By
the time the typical secular Jewish couple marries, the average ultra-Orthodox
couple has been married for six years and has three or more children,
decisively tilting the eligibility calculation in their favor.

Ultra-Orthodox
families will always benefit in this system, since 62.4 percent of them have
three or more children, compared with 36.8 percent of all Jewish families.

Yom Kippur is a national holiday in Israel; government
officers are closed and certain public activities are appropriately limited.

But the renting of bicycles in Tel Aviv is organized so as to
be a private activity, no different than buying a drink from a beverage machine
or renting a video from an automatic video dispenser. There is no justification
and no excuse for the government to interfere in any way—yes, even on Yom
Kippur.

In the
absence of clear precedent, how have halakhic decisors proceeded? The approach
taken is shaped by the decisor’s understanding of larger questions of how
Jewish law works.

The
Israeli Chief Rabbinate, following a Religious Zionist approach that seeks a
state based on a halakhah applicable to
real life and sees the need for a sufficient supply of organs in Israel, has
been fairly accepting of the brain death standard; Religious Zionist Rabbis
Avraham Shapira, Mordechai Eliyahu, and Shaul Yisraeli have supported it.

The most
vocal opponents of the brain death standard are Haredi, including Rabbis
Eliezer Waldenberg and Shmuel Wozner.

This is
Israel’s first WBC qualifier. The team is mainly comprised of American-born
Jewish players who are allowed to compete because they can claim Israeli
citizenship under the Law of Return. Three of the team’s 28 players were born
in Israel—Shlomo Lipetz, Alon Leichman and Dan Rothem—and 10 are from the Los
Angeles area.